Rolfe, Iowa.
Typical home $66,187 (-13.1% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$57 (+20%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Down $9,985 -13%
- $76,173$66,187 since Sep 2025
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Rolfe$347
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Rolfe, IA fell 13.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Rolfe, Pocahontas County, Iowa
Rolfe is a city of 509 people in Pocahontas County. Half its households earn more than $51,250 a year and half less, against $61,875 across Pocahontas County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Pocahontas County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 4.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Pocahontas County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Rolfe is a small city in Pocahontas County, Iowa, and most of the homes there are lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's, and homes are priced low compared with much of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July. Snow falls through the winter, and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in farming, and in shops. The biggest workplaces across Pocahontas County include Bobalee Hydraulics, the Pocahontas Area Comm School District and Pocahontas Community Hospital. Few adults in town hold a four-year degree, and most people travel a short way to work. Unemployment in the county is low, though the county has fewer jobs than it did a year earlier.
Things to do. The nearest places to get outdoors are rivers and parks, all a longer drive away. Indian Creek and Deer Creek are rivers, and Ambrose A. Call State Park is a protected area. Oleson Park Music Pavilion, also a longer drive away, is a theatre for music and performances.
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- 234households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Pocahontas County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pocahontas County had 2,525 jobs in 2025, 4.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 39 inches of snow and 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Pocahontas weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Pocahontas County
- Bobalee HydraulicsCylinders, fluid power, manufacturing142
- Pocahontas Area Comm School DistrictSchool district109FTE
- Pocahontas Community HospitalCritical access hospital81FTE
- BrandFX, LLC - PocahontasTruck bodies assembling on purchased chassis79
- Care Initiatives60
- PositechCranes, overhead traveling, manufacturing49
- Laurens-Marathon Comm School DistrictSchool district38FTE
- Arlington Place of PocahontasAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities26
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 496 people in all across the county; Rolfe has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rolfe’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Pocahontas County.
Rolfe home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rolfe$66,187
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Rolfe5
Zip codes with a Rolfe address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rolfe — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.